Qualifying for the state meet has been a season-long goal for both the Carson High School girls and boys cross country teams. Now that the Senators have accomplished their missions, coach Dennis Brinson has laid down one more goal.
"I don't want them to be satisfied with just getting there," Brinson said, referring to the NIAA State Championships, presented by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which will be held on Saturday in Reno. "I've told the kids, I don't want them to miss an opportunity to do their best at the state meet. This is the meet where you always want to give all you've got; if you can do that, then you can look back on the experience and not have any regrets."
Runners in six divisions will compete for honors at the state meet, starting at 9 a.m. at Rancho San Rafael Park. The gun for the 4A boys race is scheduled to go off at 10:15 a.m. and the 4A girls race will cap off the day at 12:40.
Carson's girls finished a solid third at the Northern 4A Regionals on the same course last Thursday, when they finished with 42 points and trailed only powerful Reno (24) and South Tahoe (34). The Senators will be shooting for another top three finish on Saturday, according to Brinson.
"I haven't seen what the South has done, but the goal for our girls is to finish third," he said. "And I think that's realistic if they run to their capabilities."
It would be a considerable achievement considering South Tahoe was listed No. 3 in the Nike Team Nationals Southwest Region rankings coming into the regional meet. The Vikings and Reno have been highly competitive in any meet they've run anywhere in California all season.
The top threat from the South might well be Palo Verde, the third-place finisher at state last year (two points behind Reno) and champion at the Sunrise Region meet last Friday in Las Vegas. Palo Verde packed its five scoring runners within 30 seconds of each other and finished with 29 points.
On the boys side, Carson will be withouy sophomore standout Caleb Carter, who underwent an emergency appendectomy late Wednesday night.
"Caleb is going to be hard to replace because he's been our No. 2, 3 runner all season," Brinson said.
Mark Neddenriep and Steve Maples will move into the lineup for Carson to fill in for Carter and for Sam Saunders, who will miss the meet to take his ACT test.
"I'm really confident Mark and Steve can step it up to a new level," Brinson said.
Carson's Chad Shroy - who placed fifth at regionals last week with a time of 17 minutes, 49 seconds - is looking for a similar performance at state.
"I know Chad would like to finish in the top five, maybe top three," Brinson said of the junior. "He led the two Reno guys up until the top of the last hill and they finally got him in the last 800 meters."
Notes: Reno's Joe Parker won the regional race in 17:26 and on Saturday will attempt to become the first boy to back-to-back large schools individual state titles since Cory Jeffers in 1998-99. The last boy to accomplish the feat before that was Bob Ryser of Carson in 1989-90. Mel Lawrence of Reno will also bid for her second individual girls state championship. She won the Northern 4A race last week in 18:35. ... The fastest individual times from the South last week were Jeremy Sudbury of Shadow Ridge (16:54.8) among the boys and Sierra Johnson of Las Vegas (20:16.8).
n Contact Dave Price at dprice@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1220